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Every year, all of Japan stops and focuses on both the professional and amateur baseball leagues. Televised constantly throughout the season, the game attracts passionate supporters of various teams who avidly wait for the first game of each season and, strangely, amateur leagues are as popular as professional. Newspapers are poured over and games are enthusiastically spectated at every level. Even on public transport, Walkman radios keep fans up to date with the latest happenings and results.
While the uniforms, rules and supporters are reminiscent of what you would expect from America, the home of baseball, the sport was adopted by Japan in the 1870's and has gone from strength to strength since then, even being unofficially adopted as a national sport and rivalling Sumo for its popularity.
The history
The first baseball team in Japan began in 1873 and was comprised mostly of workers from the Shinbashi railway. Other amateur teams formed, particularly in Colleges and, in 1908, one of these teams played the first American College team to visit Japan. They were defeated 6 Ð 4, a valiant effort for a new sport. The game became known as ÔyakyuÕ or Ôbesu boruÕ and was initially played wearing wooden thongs named ÔgetaÕ and traditional clothing
In the 1920's, the first professional team, Nihon Undo Kyokai, began in Shibaura and this game began to be considered as a national sport although its reach was far below that of modern Japanese baseball.
In 1934, an American Professional Baseball team consisting of selected members played with a Japanese team consisting of amateur players. This Japanese team became the second in what was later to become the Japanese Professional Baseball League in 1936. This team was called Dai Nippon and the name was later changed to the Tokyo Giants.
The Second World War had an enormous impact on baseball with anything American being seen as threatening and, by 1945, the league had crumbled and the Giant's stadium was being used as an ammunition dump. After the war however, General MacArthur promoted the resurrection of the game and the stadium was cleared and reopened, also clearing the way for a return to pre-war enthusiasm and the rapid increase of Japanese baseball amateur and professional competitions.
The leagues
Since 1950, the 12 Japanese professional teams have been divided into two leagues, Central and Pacific. There are also 2 minor leagues: Western and Eastern, with 6 teams in each. The Central league is the most popular of the 4, mostly due to the Tokyo Giants whose popularity rivals that of rock stars, movie stars and other celebrities. Competition to join The Giants was so fierce that it left other teams short of good players and a draft system was introduced to help combat this problem.
The venues
The completion of the Tokyo Dome Stadium in 1988 provided the first specific venue designed to hold large quantities of people and games often pull over 54,000 fans. Complete with artificial turf, the Dome is also used for many other events as well as baseball. Since the Tokyo Dome has been built, other Domes have been constructed in different regions in Japan. The newer Domes often have retractable roofs and are again designed to be all-purpose venues hosting everything from concerts to sport.
High School and College baseball
As well as professional baseball, amateur baseball also has an enormous following in Japan. Spring (March) and summer (August) are the biggest times for these amateur teams. For two weeks at a time, television coverage of the games is phenomenal and could be easily mistaken for the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for professional games. Parents encourage their children to participate from Primary School level and the competition is fierce even in those early years.
Success in the amateur leagues plays an important role in selection for the professional leagues although there have been problems in the past with burn out in Japanese baseball generally so steps have been taken to monitor and limit the use of players using a rotation system to conserve their abilities for as long as possible.
Baseball and Japanese hearts
While baseball was certainly an adopted sport, the Japanese have taken it to their hearts and their homes and are now world standard competitors, exchanging players with overseas teams and taking an active role in International competition. Modern Japanese players no longer stand out so much because of their height and size as Japanese youth begin to eat increasingly more meat and to resemble Western body types more and more.
Considering the number of sports which the Japanese have given to the rest of the world like Judo, Karate and Sumo, perhaps it is only fair that they incorporate foreign sports in return. And they have certainly shown that they are capable of playing, and defeating, the best. But in the meantime, have they lost their sense of fun and play?
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